Vodacom

Given that my fibre contract is with Vodacom, on 25/10/2024, I app**** for a cellphone contract with them. I app**** on the online platform after which they sent me an email requesting for my documentation.

I provided the relevant documentation and got an SMS to say that my application was declined. There was no information regarding why I was declined, so I called in order to request feedback.

Firstly it takes at minimum 4 minutes to get through all the prompts, then after that I spoke to a consultant. The consultant informed me that I was declined because there was an unpaid debit found on my bank statement to which I asked the following questions:

1. Did the unpaid debit give them a reflection that I could not afford to pay for the contract? 2. Seeing as they had proof that the unpaid debit was due to a timing difference between the date my salary came in and the debit order date, what was their assessment? (for context, this is an issue I have had with the bank for a while and they had been struggling to change my debit order date to the last day of the month). Even after I explained this, and showed them how clear it was that from when I was permanent (in the very next bank statements as well as per my contract of employment which they asked for) reflect that this never happened again, as my salary date changed, they could not respond. It became exceedingly clear that there was no attempt to understand my issue infact the consultants could not explain to me why an unpaid debit is an issue even though there is proof that it was resolved the very next day.

The consultant could not provide an answer and put me on hold while asking back office. After holding for a while, I was told that back office said you can reapply after 90 days. I attempted to call a number of times to request that my matter be escalated or at least to speak to someone at back office but each time the consultant did not know what to do and connected me to a completely wrong department. At this point I even know all the Vodacom numbers: 135, 1944, 1905, 1945 ALL that led to no resolve. This has cost me close to 2 hours of talk time given the amount of time they keep you on hold (this is all at my expense)

I then logged a ticket on the vadmin email address (ticket number: 251576) outlining my situation, to which I was given the response that I was challenging being "I spoke to the person who assessed your application and they said you had an unpaid debit on your account". I requested an escalation which I was denied a response, and when I asked for a contact person to email my query to, the consultant sent me the Experian email address as though I am unaware of what my credit record looks like.

Apart from the fact that I am deeply disappointed by the service provider and actually have many questions about their integrity given that they debit my account on the fibre side but are highly reluctant to assist on this matter, this encounter further showed me that: 1. There is a mindless process in the background that involves a user reading bank statements for key words and making decisions that lack context. No one is willing to ask why, or put some thought into it. 2. The service provider is willing to keep you on the phone for hours and the consultants redirect you to places that can't assist. 3. The escalation process on the website is useless. 4. To date the service provider has not been able to inform me if the result of the assessment showed that I could not afford the contract. 5. The service provider asked for my personal information in order to process it. However, when I request feedback and the result of the assessment, I am not provided with anything that holds substance but they have the audacity to give me experian's email address as if they checked what my credit score is because I am very much aware what my credit rating is.